My Backup Routine

For a long time I was looking for a comfortable backup routine that works for my use case of having multiple devices (2 linux laptops, 1 windows desktop, 1 phone) and includes off-site cold storage. Cold, as in, disconnected from the internet and therefore unhackable, and off-site for protection against a burglary or fire. The solution I settled for is simple and cheap:

Instead of hauling around expensive/big/fragile external harddrives, I bought two 256GB USB pen drives, encrypted them and copied over my most important files. One of them I store near me, whereas the other one I hide at a remote place that I regularily visit. Every week or two, I plug in my USB drive, unlock it, and run a script that refeshes the backup. Whenever I visit the remote place, I simply swap out the pen drives, thereby updating the remote backup.

The backup script automatically copies 5 directories from my primary machine to the USB drive, including directories synchronized with other devices via syncthing and git. All I have to in my day-to-day life is: If I see files that I can't afford to lose, I put them in one of those 5 directories. If they have to be in other places (because an application expects them there), I simply create a symbolic link.

I still have bulk sorage devices, but those contain files that I can afford to lose, so I don't bother with inconvenient cold off-site backups.